The Relevance of the Bhagavad-Gita to Humanity: (The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita): 1.5. - Swami Krishnananda.

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Tuesday 29, April 2025, 12:30.
The Relevance of the Bhagavad-Gita to Humanity: 
(The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavad-Gita): 1.5
1.Introduction -5.
Swami Krishnananda.

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In such a way, we may say there is a final word about the fundamentals of human behaviour and conduct, which norm is laid down in the Bhagavadgita. It is true that the Bhagavadgita does not tell us how we can cook our food, how we can take a bath, or how we can stitch our shirt; but it lays down certain fundamental, basic principles of human conduct under confrontations and difficulties which are the irreconcilable elements in human society. There were dharma sankatas, as we call them. Dharma sankata means a quandary in dharma. 'Quandary' means a difficult situation, where we cannot pass an immediate judgment. Sometimes we are in a dilemma. Either way it is a difficult thing. We cannot go that way, and we cannot go this way. Sometimes we find ourselves in that state of affairs, and that is a dharma sankata. It is a quandary, a helpless state, a difficult confrontation where it is hard to make out what is the proper step to be taken, because it is a terrible tangle. That tangle was the background of the whole Mahabharata story. It was a tangle, a network, a difficult knot which could not easily be broken through. Very many questions arose in the minds of people, and they were not able to easily decipher the background of the answers for these questions. It required a superior understanding to throw light on these problems. As a judge in a court is considered to have a wider form of understanding, transcending the understanding of the clients, similarly, the person, the personality, the figure that spoke the Bhagavadgita stood above humanity.

So a superman spoke a superhuman gospel. It is necessary that a superman should speak to solve human problems. Man's problems cannot be solved by man only, just as a patient cannot treat himself. He requires a doctor. Man cannot help another man, because all men usually think alike and they are in a similar state of difficulty. A superior hand which has an impartial judgment and knows all the pros and cons of the difficulties and problems is necessary. Such a figure was the personality of Sri Krishna in the Mahabharata. The role that he played in the whole epic is an outstanding example of a judicious superhuman intelligence operating in difficult situations.

I mentioned that a superman has to come out of man, and though we may not be superhuman individuals in our solutions of the problems of life, we may have to be superhuman in our understanding, in some percentage at least. We should not stoop down to the level of an utterly selfish outlook of life where what is pleasant to me only is good, and the pleasant need not necessarily be the good. So the superhuman figure of Bhagavan Sri Krishna spoke a superhuman teaching for a superhuman good that is to befall all mankind if that law is to be followed.

Because of the fact that it ranges beyond human understanding, it is not easy to know all its implications. Therefore, many commentaries have been written on it, and every commentary seems to be good. There are so many commentaries written by lawyers on the Constitution of India. Every enactment has a commentary, and each lawyer who has a point of view attaches a kind of footnote to elucidate a knotty point in a particular enactment. Likewise, there are commentaries on the Bhagavadgita. All shed light on certain facets of the great light which is the Bhagavadgita.

Now, this is a great question which students who wish to live a higher life raise before themselves and try to answer. To find this answer they come to holy places of personages who are in a position to guide them – teachers, masters, Gurus or yogis, whoever they are. In this ashram of Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj, we are all here to seek an answer to this great question, to answer our own questions. I have to answer my question, and you have to answer your question. For this purpose, to receive guidance along these lines of answering our questions, we are gathered here. Hence, may we consider ourselves blessed that God has planted in us a little inclination to accept that it is necessary for us to live a better life than what we are living now – a higher life, if we would like to call it that. So goes today.

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Next: 

2.The Sabha Parva of the Mahabharata

Continued

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